Garry Walberg
Garry Walberg was an American character actor known for his work on television. He performed in numerous TV shows from the early 1950s, until the early 1990s, including Johnny Staccato, Perry Mason, Peyton Place, The Fugitive, Star Trek, The Tony Randall Show and The Rockford Files, he appeared in the first episode of The Twilight Zone, entitled "Where Is Everybody?". The Buffalo, New York-born Walberg was best known for his role as LAPD Homicide Lt. Frank Monahan in Quincy, M. E. starring Jack Klugman in the title role. Walberg had appeared alongside Klugman in The Odd Couple in the recurring role of Oscar's poker crony, Homer "Speed" Deegan, he reprised the role in the 1993 TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again. This was his final acting appearance. Married and divorced twice, Walberg married his third wife, Florence M. Apostol, on September 12, 1987. Walberg died from chronic pulmonary disease on March 2012, aged 90, in Northridge, California. Garry Walberg on IMDb Garry Walberg at Memory Alpha
Doogie Howser, M.D.
Doogie Howser, M. D. is an American medical comedy-drama television series that ran for four seasons on ABC from September 19, 1989, to March 24, 1993, totaling 97 episodes. Created by Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley, the show stars Neil Patrick Harris in the title role as a teenage physician who balances the challenge of practicing medicine with the everyday problems of teenage life. Dr. Douglas "Doogie" Howser is the son of Katherine Howser; as a child, he twice survived early-stage pediatric leukemia after his father—a family physician—discovered suspicious bruising. The experience contributed to the younger Howser's desire to enter medicine. Possessing a genius intellect and an eidetic memory, Howser participates in a longitudinal study of child prodigies until his 18th birthday, he earned a perfect score on the SAT at the age of six, completed high school in nine weeks at the age of nine, graduated from Princeton University in 1983 at age 10, finished medical school four years later. At age 14, Howser was the youngest licensed doctor in the country.
As a newspaper article stated, he "can't buy beer... can prescribe drugs". The series begins on Howser's 16th birthday. Howser is a second-year resident surgeon at Eastman Medical Center in Los Angeles, still lives at home with his parents, his best friend and neighbor, Vinnie Delpino, is a more typical teenager—climbing through Howser's bedroom window to visit—and connects him to life outside of medicine. Howser has kept a diary on his computer since 1979. Howser seeks acceptance from both children his age, his professional colleagues. Many episodes deal with wider social problems: AIDS awareness, homophobia, gang violence, access to quality medical care, losing one's virginity are topics, along with aging, body issues, friendship. Howser has a girlfriend, Wanda Plenn, but they break up after she leaves for college. Bochco intended to end the show with a "season-long story arc for Doogie where he becomes disaffected with the practice of medicine and quits medicine to become a writer". ABC abruptly canceled the show due to low ratings, preventing Bochco and the show's writers from implementing the storyline other than Howser's resignation from Eastman and departure for Europe in the final episode.
The weekly, half-hour dramedy was created by Steven Bochco. He originated the concept and asked David E. Kelley to help write the pilot, giving Kelley a "created by" credit. Harris was the first actor the show's staff had found that could convincingly play a teenage doctor, but ABC executives opposed his casting. Bochco's contract required that the network pay an "enormous" penalty if it canceled the project, so ABC was forced to let him film the pilot; the network still opposed Harris's casting and disliked the pilot, but after positive reception during test screenings, ABC greenlit the show. Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Douglas "Doogie" Howser, the show's protagonist. Max Casella as Vincent "Vinnie" Salvatore Delpino, Howser's best friend since they were five years old. A typical girl-crazy teenager, Delpino resists his father's demands to join the family business and instead attends film school to pursue a career as a film director. James B. Sikking as Dr. David Howser, Doogie Howser's father.
The Vietnam War MASH veteran has a family practice. Belinda Montgomery as Katherine Howser, Doogie Howser's mother. A housewife, she returns to work as a patient advocate at her son's hospital. Lisa Dean Ryan as Wanda Plenn, Delpino's high-school classmate and Howser's girlfriend. After her mother dies in an automobile accident, Plenn's relationship with Howser suffers. After she leaves for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago they end their relationship. Lucy Boryer as Janine Stewart, Delpino's girlfriend and Plenn's best friend, she becomes a buyer for a department store. Lawrence Pressman as Dr. Benjamin Canfield, head of Eastman Medical. Canfield is an old friend and classmate of David Howser, persuades him to join the hospital to run its family practice. Mitchell Anderson as Dr. Jack McGuire, a resident at Eastman and Howser's friendly rival. A visit to rural Mexico inspires him to leave the hospital to serve the poor overseas. Kathryn Layng as Mary Margaret "Curly" Spaulding, a nurse at Eastman.
Spaulding dates McGuire and both Canfield and Howser. Markus Redmond as Raymond Alexander, an orderly at Eastman. While he was a gang member, Alexander meets Howser after taking him hostage during a convenience-store robbery. Rif Hutton as Dr. Ron Welch, a fellow doctor, friends with Howser. Robyn Lively as Michele Faber, a nursing student, she becomes Howser's girlfriend shortly before he decides to go to Europe. Barry Livingston as Dr. Bob Rickett, a fellow doctor working at Eastman. Anchor Bay Entertainment released all four seasons of Doogie Howser, M. D. on DVD in Region 1 between 2005 and 2006. At one point there were plans f
Alexander Siddig
Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi is an English actor. He is known by the stage names Siddig El Fadil through Alexander Siddig since, he is known for playing Dr. Julian Bashir in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Philip Burton in Primeval, Carthaginian general Hannibal in Hannibal – Rome's Worst Nightmare, King Minos in Atlantis, for his performances as Prince Nasir Al-Subaai in Syriana, Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani in Kingdom of Heaven, Tareq Khalifa in Cairo Time, as well as the sixth season of 24, he is appearing in Gotham as Ra's al Ghul. Siddig has spent most of his life in England, he was born to an English mother who worked as a Sudanese father. His maternal uncle is English actor Malcolm McDowell, with whom he appeared in 2008 in Neil Marshall's Doomsday, his paternal uncle is the former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, he is a great-great-great-grandson of Sudanese leader Muhammad Ahmad. He attended St Lawrence College, Kent.
Western culture required a surname, so El Fadil was taken from Sid's grandfather and was adopted as his surname when he moved back to England. He was credited under the shortened name Siddig El Fadil until October 1995. Three seasons into his run on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, he changed his stage name to Alexander Siddig. Siddig attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to study acting and, after leaving LAMDA, did a season of stage work in Manchester, he worked as a director in a small theatre in London. Siddig first appeared to television audiences as Prince Feisal in A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia, the 1990 TV sequel to Lawrence of Arabia. Siddig's performance in A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia brought him to the attention of Rick Berman, creating the new series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Although he auditioned for the role of Commander Benjamin Sisko, Berman decided Siddig was too young for the role and cast him as Dr. Julian Bashir instead; the part had to be rewritten for Siddig as the original "bible" had called for a Hispanic male named Julian Amoros to play the part, although Berman reports that no other actors were considered for the role.
After Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finished, Siddig appeared as an Algerian secret agent on the trail of Islamists in the controversial episode "Nest of Angels" of the British television show Spooks in 2003. In 2005, he appeared as Imad, in Ridley Scott's film Kingdom of Heaven, he gave a critically lauded performance as Prince Nasir in Syriana, alongside George Clooney and Matt Damon. He played the title role in 2006's Hannibal – Rome's Worst Nightmare for the BBC. Early 2007, Siddig joined the cast of Un Homme Perdu and he returned to American television in the role of former terrorist Hamri Al-Assad for the sixth season of 24. In 2009, he co-starred with Patricia Clarkson in the award-winning film Cairo Time as Tareq Khalifa, an Egyptian who battles his attraction to his friend's wife. In August 2010, he expressed his doubts about resurrecting his character, Dr. Julian Bashir, from Deep Space Nine, stating that he has "other ambitions". In 2013, Siddig appeared as a Syrian-Canadian in the IFC film Inescapable with Marisa Tomei and Joshua Jackson, as King Minos in the BBC show Atlantis.
In 2015 appeared in HBO series Game of Thrones in season 5 and season 6 as Doran Martell, the ruling Prince of Dorne. Siddig's roles have called for him to act out many different accents: he used received pronunciation, an Algerian accent among others, he has given performances in Arabic as the role required as well as French Alexander made a short video about an East Indian man, infected with HIV for International HIV Fund. Siddig met Nana Visitor on the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In 1996, they began a relationship and they married in June 1997, they divorced in 2001. ExtraOrdinary as King Tut James Cameron's Titanic Explorer video game – various voices Whose Life Is It Anyway?, stage play in London – Dr Scott Family Guy season 4, episode 2, "Patriot Games" – Voice of one of the London Silly Nannies Doctor Who audioplays "Sisters of the Flame" and "Vengeance of Morbius" – Rosto. Science Fiction Television Series, 1990-2004. New York City: McFarland & Company. P. 271. ISBN 978-0786424832.
Official website Alexander Siddig on IMDb
Sam J. Jones
Samuel Gerald Jones, known professionally as Sam J. Jones, is an American actor, he is best known for having played the title character in the 1980 film Flash Gordon and The Highwayman. Jones was born in Chicago and grew up in Sacramento, California. In 1972, after high school, Jones enlisted in the United States Marine Corps where he played football. With service in the Corps completed, he moved to Seattle with the ambition of joining the Seahawks but was turned down. Instead, in 1976, he played for the Flyers, as a semi-professional. In parallel and to supplement his income, Jones began modelling. Starting in 1975, he appeared in full frontal nude under the alias "Andrew Cooper III" as the centerfold for a photo-spread in the June issue of Playgirl magazine, he starred in TV commercials for a local sporting goods store in Seattle before moving to Los Angeles in 1977. Jones made his first film appearance in the 1979 romantic comedy film 10, his appearance in 10 allowed him to beat Kurt Russell and Arnold Schwarzenegger for his most famous role, that of Flash Gordon in the 1980 film of the same name.
Jones dyed his hair blonde for this role. The film was moderately successful at the box office grossing $27.1 million in North America, $22 million in the UK: double its $20 million budget. However, a falling out between Jones and the producers helped to scrap the planned trilogy. After the release of Flash Gordon, Playgirl reprinted his 1975 photo-spread in its January 1981 issue, this time using his real name, he went on to play Chris Rorchek in the TV series Code Red. He had guest roles in other TV shows including The A-Team and Riptide. In 1987, he played the lead role in a TV adaptation of Will Eisner's comics character The Spirit, he played the title character in the short-lived NBC sci-fi series The Highwayman. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he portrayed Johnny Valentine on Ten. Jones starred in the 1986 theatrical release My Chauffeur and the straight-to-video movies Jungle Heat and the Lost City, Under the Gun, Silent Assassins, Driving Force, One Man Force. In the 1990s, Jones had roles in films including In Gold We Trust, Maximum Force, Fist of Honor, Hard Vice, Enter the Shootfighter, Texas Payback, The Killer Inside, Earth Minus Zero, Baja Run and American Tigers, guest roles in the TV shows Baywatch, Diagnosis Murder and Walker: Texas Ranger.
In 2001, Jones was cast in Animal Planet's family series Hollywood Safari as a park ranger. He appeared in "Deadman Switch", an episode of the television series Stargate SG-1. in 2002, Jones retrained and, when he is not acting or working autograph booths on the ComicCon circuit, he works as a high-end security professional in San Diego, protecting traveling executives to Mexico. In his words "I became a security professional 15 years ago. My wife said, ` You've been waiting for the phone to ring; the phone isn't ringing. We have kids. There's the door. Don’t come back until you’re providing.' That's. Actor? I'm a working man. Whatever it takes to provide, I'm a working man". In 2007, he played the prisoner Krebb in the Sci Fi Channel original television series Flash Gordon, he had extended cameos in both the 2012 comedy film Ted and its 2015 sequel, Ted 2. In 2019, Life After Flash, a feature-length documentary starring Jones, directed by Lisa Downs & produced by Ashley Pugh, was released worldwide.
Life After Flash not only celebrates the 1980 classic featuring interviews with cast and fans including Melody Anderson, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, Mark Millar, Robert Rodriguez, Stan Lee and Brian May, but explores the aftermath of when star Sam J Jones went up against one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood: Dino De Laurentiis. Jones married Lynn Eriks in 1982, he married Ramona Lynn Jones on June 26, 1992. 1979 10 as David Hanley – Feature film 1980 Stunts Unlimited as Bo Carlson – TV movie 1980 Flash Gordon as Flash Gordon – Feature film 1981-1982 Code Red as Chris Rorcheck – TV series 1984 The A-Team as Eric Episode – TV series 1984 Hunter as Lance Lance – TV series 1984 Riptide as Rick Beever – TV series 1985 Hardcastle and McCormick as Grant Miller – TV series 1985 Jungle Heat as Gordon – Feature film 1986 My Chauffeur as Battle Witherspoon – Feature film 1987 The Spirit as The Spirit / Denny Colt 1987–1988 The Highwayman as The Highwayman.
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Ryan's Hope
Ryan's Hope is an American soap opera created by Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer airing for 13 years on ABC from July 7, 1975 to January 13, 1989. It revolves around the trials and tribulations within a large Irish-American family in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. In late 1974, ABC Daytime approached Claire Labine and Paul Avila Mayer, the head writers of CBS' Love of Life, about creating a new soap opera similar to General Hospital. Labine and Mayer added a large Irish-American family — the Ryans — to what ABC was calling City Hospital. Another of the show's working titles was "A Rage to Love," but, soon changed. A pub theme originated with Mayer's and Labine's work on the earlier soap Where The Heart Is: "On WTHI we had had a prolonged sequence with two characters who were having an affair... on the other side of town in a small Irish bar."Ryan patriarch Johnny owned a bar, Ryan's, across from fictional Riverside Hospital in New York City. His wife, assisted him in his duties, as did their children: Frank, Patrick and Siobhan.
The Ryans and the wealthy Coleridges were the original core families of the show. The soap took the then-unusual approach of situating itself in an actual community—the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. Maeve's parish sat in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge, on 178th St. References were made to Central Park, Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, other localities to provide a sense of place. "We wanted to show how New York has communities," Labine said. Labine and Mayer served as the executive producers of the show at this point, with George Lefferts as the producer. Lefferts was soon replaced by Robert Costello, who remained with the show until 1978. Nancy Ford co-wrote the first episode with Mayer; the original cast consisted of Nancy Addison Altman, Bernard Barrow, Faith Catlin, Justin Deas, Michael Fairman, John Gabriel, Helen Gallagher, Michael Levin, Malcolm Groome, Rosalinda Guerra, Ron Hale, Michael Hawkins, Earl Hindman, Ilene Kristen, Frank Latimore, Kate Mulgrew, Hannibal Penney, Jr. and Diana van der Vlis.
The premise of the show for its first two years involved the blue-collar, Catholic Ryans and the three of their five upwardly mobile adult children still residing in NY: Frank and aspiring local politician. The show contrasted the cultures of conservative parents with their more liberated,'70s-drenched children. Older morals about lifetime marriages, church-proscribed divorce, chastity outside of marital sanction were being tested by New-World, New-Era urban values. Frank's political campaign for city council was challenged by a chain of events surrounding his paying off the Coleridge son who knew of the affair Frank was having with Jillian Coleridge while married to needy, frantic Delia; the political scandal angle was soon reiterated with Frank's short tenure in the state senate. Delia became involved with all three of Johnny Ryan's sons: Frank and Dakota; the quasi-incestuous focus was echoed in coming years by Frank's involvement with both Coleridge sisters and Faith, with Faith's involvement with Ryan brothers and Frank, again with Jillian's involvement with half-brothers Frank and Dakota, by gangster Michael Pavel's involvement with New York publisher/Frank's ex fiancee Rae Woodward and her teen daughter, Kim.
Mary became irresistibly attracted to a reporter exposing Frank's blackmailing scandal, the fiery Jack Fenelli, moved in with him without benefit of marriage. These extramarital and premarital affairs, the attendant children out of wedlock, the careerist women, the assertion of abortion rights: the clash of generational values in the Ryan clan was interesting to viewers, there developed a passionate following for Kate Mulgrew's portrayal of Mary Ryan. Mary's career and personal goals were given neurotic counterpoint in Delia's machinations with Mary's brothers. After two years of growth and success, Ryan's Hope began encountering challenges. Michael Hawkins left the role of Frank Ryan in 1976, subsequent replacements included Andrew Robinson, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Geoffrey Pierson, John Sanderford. In late 1977, Kate Mulgrew announced she would be leaving in January 1978. Following Mulgrew's departure, three different actresses, Mary Carney, Kathleen Tolan, Nicolette Goulet, played Mary, it was Goulet, in the role when storywriters Labine and Mayer decided to kill off the character in December 1979.
The writers wanted to kill off Mary when Mulgrew announced her decision to leave but ABC refused to allow the popular character to be killed off, going ahead with the three re-casts. When it became obvious that no one other than Mulgrew herself would be accepted in the role, the network agreed to let Mary die. Mary's sister, was brought to town to become romantically involved with a man, Joe Novak, who turned out to be a mobster, a storyline that offed Mary in a grisly bludgeoning murder when she and Jack were investigating the mafia ties of the fiancé. Malcolm Groome chose to leave the role of Pat Ryan in 1978 and was replaced with John Blazo, Robert Finoccoli, Patrick James Clarke. All these recasts left the writers struggling to give a voice to any of the Ryan children and left the show's core family feeling unfamiliar to viewers. Other characters not related to
Spirit (comics)
The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers. "The Spirit Section", as the insert was popularly known, continued until October 5, 1952. It included two other four-page strips, plus filler material. Eisner was the editor, but wrote and drew most entries—after the first few months, he had the uncredited assistance of writer Jules Feiffer and artists Jack Cole and Wally Wood, though Eisner's singular vision for the strip was a unifying factor; the Spirit chronicles the adventures of a masked vigilante who fights crime with the blessing of the city's police commissioner Dolan, an old friend. Despite the Spirit's origin as detective Denny Colt, his real identity was unmentioned again, for all intents and purposes he was "the Spirit"; the stories are presented in a wide variety of styles, from straightforward crime drama and noir to lighthearted adventure, from mystery and horror to comedy and love stories with hybrid elements that twisted genre and reader expectations.
From the 1960s to 1980s, a handful of new Eisner Spirit stories appeared in Harvey Comics and elsewhere, Warren Publishing and Kitchen Sink Press variously reprinted the newspaper feature in black-and-white comics magazines and in color comic books. In the 1990s and 2000s, Kitchen Sink Press and DC Comics published new Spirit stories by other writers and artists. In 2011, IGN ranked The Spirit 21st in the Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of all time. In late 1939, Everett M. "Busy" Arnold, publisher of the Quality Comics comic-book line, began exploring an expansion into newspaper Sunday supplements, aware that many newspapers felt they had to compete with the burgeoning new medium of American comic books, as exemplified by the Chicago Tribune Comic Book, premiering two months before The Spirit Section. Arnold compiled a presentation piece with existing Quality Comics material. An editor of The Washington Star liked George Brenner's comic-book feature "The Clock", but not Brenner's art, was favorably disposed toward a Lou Fine strip.
Arnold, concerned over the meticulous Fine's slowness and his ability to meet deadlines, claimed it was the work of Eisner, Fine's boss at the Eisner & Iger studio, from which Arnold bought his outsourced comics work. In "late'39, just before Christmas time", Eisner recalled in 1979, "Arnold came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom". In a 2004 interview, Eisner elaborated on that meeting: "Busy" invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin, who said, "The newspapers in this country the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers"... Martin asked if I could do it... It meant that I'd have to leave Iger was making money. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal was that we'd be partners in the "Comic Book Section", as they called it at that time. Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright The Spirit, but, "Written down in the contract I had with'Busy' Arnold — and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership — Arnold agreed that it was my property.
They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to'Busy' Arnold and his family, they all signed a release agreeing that they would not pursue the question of ownership." This would include the eventual backup features, "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck." Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, for $20,000, Eisner left to create The Spirit. "They gave me an adult audience", Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and began The Spirit, they wanted a costumed character. They asked me, and I put a mask on him and said,'Yes, he has a costume!'"The character and the types of stories Eisner would tell, Eisner said in 1978, derived from his desire...to do short stories. I always regarded comics as my medium. Creating a detective character would... provide me with the most viable vehicle for the kind of stories I could best tell.
The syndicate people weren't in full agreement with me... N my first discussion with'Busy' Arnold, his thinking centered around a superhero kind of character—a costumed character. O one evening, around three in the morning, I was still working, trying to find it—I only had about a week-and-a-half or two weeks in which to produce the first issue, the whole deal was done in quite a rush—and I came up with an outlaw hero, suitable, I felt, for an adult audience; the character's name, he said in that interview, came from Arnold: "When'Busy' Arnold called, he suggested a kind of ghost or some kind of metaphysical character. He said,'How about a thing called the Ghost?' and I said,'Naw, that's not any good,' and he said,'W
